Forty-four years ago today saw the birth of Celtic’s most enduring legend – that of the Lisbon Lions.  It is a legend that burns as brightly today as did the hopes of the entire Celtic family just over forty-six years ago, on the return of Jock Stein to Celtic Park on 9th March 1965.

Exactly fourteen months later, on 9th May 1966, two days after the clinching of Celtic’s first league championship in twelve years, the Big Man made the following prophetic announcement:

“It is up to us, to everyone at Celtic Park now, to build up our own legends.  We don’t want to live with history, to be compared to legends of the past.  We must make new legends and our League Championship win is the first step towards doing that.”

The rest IS legend, as recorded in “A SEASON IN THE SUN”, the definitive book on Celtic’s ‘Wonder Year’ of 1966/67, which spawned this blog and is now available as a Kindle eBook, with a proportion of proceeds going to help the wonderful work of the Celtic Graves Society.

The Introduction to that book, which you can enjoy here in the accompanying podcast, sets the scene for the tale of an epic journey into Celtic folklore by a squad of young men (and one veteran!) who could never have imagined what stretched before them.

All Hail to the Lisbon Lions!

Johnbhoy

[podcast]http://www.25thmay1967.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/BR_014.mp3[/podcast]